


Out Of Sync From The Very Beginning

by redbrunja



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Drunkenness, F/M, Hand Kink, Oblivious Steve Rogers, Post Avengers (Movie), SHIP DARCY WITH ALL THE THINGS, Steve Rogers Feels, background Natasha Romanoff/Clint Barton, background Tony Stark/Pepper Potts - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-16
Updated: 2012-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-21 06:30:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/594534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbrunja/pseuds/redbrunja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers couldn't get drunk and he didn't have anyone to kiss at midnight, but he was still enjoying Tony Stark's New Year's Eve Party.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out Of Sync From The Very Beginning

Steve was actually enjoying Tony Stark's New Year's Eve Party. He couldn't get drunk and he didn't have anyone to kiss at midnight, but after the fourth time Steve had gotten cornered by an intoxicated woman wearing a dress that bordered on legal indecency, Natasha had appeared at his side, given the room a sweet smile that showed teeth, and talked with him for three-quarters of an hour about possible upcoming missions and what he'd thought of his recent visit to the Museum of Modern Art. Steve liked talking with Natasha - she was smart and fearless and wry, and didn't seem to find his gaps in history or pop culture amusing or quaint. When she slid away, looking lovely and lethal in green, no one else took her place.  
  
It was oddly comforting, to be mostly ignored; he'd been a wallflower at a lot of different events back in the 1940's so he was familiar with it, and he did enjoy people watching. It would be rude to pull out his sketchbook at a party - it was back in his rooms, so he wouldn't be tempted, but his fingers itched to draw the people around him. He did his best to memorize some of the tableaus around him, wanting to try to put them to paper later.  
  
There was Tony and Pepper's midnight kiss. Not the big, swooping one, right when the clock struck midnight, when Tony dipped Pepper back, dramatic as a movie star, and laid one on her, but right after, when they were both upright but still standing so close to each other that when Pepper opened her eyes and started talking, clearly continuing whatever they'd been discussing right before their kiss, their lips just brushed. Tony still had Pepper's right hand in his left, his right hand resting at the small of her back, and there was a serious, loving expression in his eyes even as he shook his head and started to argue with her.  
  
Clint had his forearm braced against one of the floor to ceiling windows, looking out at the city, beer bottle dangling from his fingers. Natasha strolled to his side, swiped the bottle out of his hand, and took a sip. She leaned back against the window, watching the room (she met Steve's eyes, smiled) before leaning towards Clint, whispering something into his ear that had his head turning, fast, towards her. Steve already knew that he'd fail at putting Natasha and Clint down on paper, that some vital intimacy of their body language would be lost when Steve tried to sketch it.  
  
He had a better shot at getting Darcy and Jane and Selvig down. None of them had brought a date, that Steve could tell, and so at midnight they were all kissing each other's cheeks and hugging, their laugher rising up above the sound of everything else cheering and the music playing.  
  
Steve watched them. Darcy glanced his way, red lips parted, still laughing. She continued to look in his direction, laugh trailing off, and it took him too long to realize that she was  _looking right at him_ , that he wasn't actually invisible, that she could see him staring at her like a creepy jerk.  
  
He dropped his gaze, feeling his cheeks heat, and scraped the edge of his thumbnail along the label of his beer.  
  
He suddenly, desperately, wished he could actually get drunk. Or vanish. Either option would be good, right about now.  
  
He glanced Darcy's way again, and she was suddenly much closer, crossing the room to him.  
  
"Hi!" Darcy said, and leaned against the wall next to him. She had a martini glass in her hand, the rim lined with either salt or sugar. "You're Captain America," she said, and licked at the rim of her glass, tongue shockingly pink.  
  
"Um, yes?" he said. He'd only been asked that question about a thousand times; he still came off like an idiot answering it.  
  
"Do you know," Darcy started, and swayed.  
  
Steve realized that she was drunk. Not terribly, but her cheeks were flushed and she was clearly unsteady on her feet. He put his hand on her arm.  
  
She glanced down at his hand.  
  
He moved it away.  
  
"I'm going to go sit down," she said decisively. She grabbed his wrist and tugged him to an unoccupied couch. She managed to flop down without spilling her drink and patted the couch next to her with a smile that made Steve's knees feel like mush.  
  
"Do you know," Darcy began again, tone very serious, "that I was  _forced_  to write a paper on the Captain America films to pass Communications 480? In-class essay, which are the  _worst_ ," Darcy knocked back the remainder of her drink, focused for a moment on licking the rim clean.  
  
 _Sugar_ , Steve thought,  _definitely sugar,_  and couldn't help but wonder if her mouth would be sweet and sticky if he kissed her.  
  
"And instead of writing about Leni Riefenstahl, I had to write about  _you_ ," Darcy frowned at him, set her drink on a convienantly placed end table.  
  
Steve groped for a response, any response.  
  
"I'm sorry...?" he hazarded.  
  
Darcy patted his leg. Her hand was small and warm. When she finished patting, she left her hand on his leg. It felt very nice, especially when she smiled at him again, eyes bright.  
  
"I forgive you," she said, generously, and then looked around the room. Steve did the same, trying to think of something to say. As awkward as he felt, he really wanted to keep talking with Darcy. He wished Bucky were around, to give him pointers. Of course, if Bucky were around, Darcy would take one look at him, Bucky would say something suave and perfect and winning, and she'd be glued to his side in a snap. Steve forced himself not to go down that road, wondering what the future would be like if he hadn't woken up alone in it.  
  
"Who... was it that you'd preferred to write about?" Steve tried.  
  
Darcy turned to him and talked about German propaganda in the 1930's and Steve tried not to tighten up, unable to not think about what had happened after, the war and losing Bucky and then losing everything. Darcy babbled on about the power of media to suppress or disseminate ideas, oblivious to his discomfort and then started talking about camera angles and tracking, which seemed very abstract and unrelated to Steve by comparison. Darcy took her hand off his leg to bump her glasses further up her nose but she scooted towards him, a line of warmth against his side. Steve nodded and tried to figure out how to put his arm over her shoulders and then told himself he shouldn't try to take liberties, take advantage, she was drunk, otherwise she'd be talking to someone else. She started to tell him about getting a political science degree, and he asked her about college, and what it had been like, and she started talking about herself, about changing her major three times and taking an internship in New Mexico and she asked him about Europe, and said she wished she'd been a little more focused, because then she could have gone backpacking through Europe. Steve stumbled over his words, trying to find an answer that wasn't about what it had been like to be at war, because nobody seemed to want to hear about that. He didn't quite manage to keep his conversation carefree, wasn't able to talk about England and France without mentioning the Howling Commandos and Agent Carter and Bucky and he wasn't a good enough liar to keep his voice free of grief but Darcy just listened, shoving her glasses up every once in a while.  
  
There was a pause in the conversation and Darcy held out her hand. She misjudged the distance, bumped her hand into his chest, patted it twice and then giggled for about three minutes straight, almost tipping off the couch.  
  
"I'm Darcy Lewis," she said, once the giggles had died down. "I don't think I mentioned that."  
  
"I know," Steve said. Bruce had said that she was assisting Dr. Foster, when Dr. Foster began working at Stark Tower. He'd seen her around a couple of times, most memorably when a cluster of mutated lobsters had been set loose in the R&D floors. He'd bolted past Foster's labs, realized there were people inside, skidded to a halt, and ran back to see a laboratory covered in white foam, Darcy smacking one crustacean into bits of shell and brown goo with a bright red fire extinguisher.  
  
She'd looked up, seen him, and yelled, "we're good, you go," and jerked her head toward the other labs, where people were screaming. He'd gone.  
  
"We've actually met before, with the fire extinguisher," he said. He mimed whacking something, realized in the middle of the motion that he looked like an idiot.  
  
"Oh," Darcy frowned.  
  
Steve groped for something to say, to continue the conversation.  
  
"Are you..." where had he been going with that sentence?  
  
"I'm Jane's intern," she continued. "That's Jane over there." Darcy waved. "Hi, Jane!"  
  
Darcy leaned closer, whispered in a voice that nonetheless carried quite far, "Jane's very sad. Her boyfriend's on another planet."  
  
Dr. Foster was currently waving her arms around and explaining something to Bruce who was nodding and drawing something on a napkin. She didn't look too heartbroken to Steve but maybe she was just putting on a good face.  
  
"I don't even have a boyfriend on  _any_  planet," Darcy said with great sadness.  
  
"That's nice," Steve said without thinking.  
  
"What?" Darcy said, loudly enough that several people's heads turned towards them. "How is that nice?"  
  
Steve floundered. Over by the windows, Natasha was looking at him with a deeply amused but not unsympathetic expression while Clint's shoulders were jerking with what Steve just knew was suppressed hilarity.  
  
"I mean," Steve began, and then realized Selvig was making a great show of taking ten dollars out of a purse. Jane was looking between Selvig and Darcy like she'd just missed something.  
  
Darcy scrambled up onto her knees, cupped her hands around her mouth, and yelled, "I am not making an idiot of myself, Selvig,  _god_ , put that money back." She almost toppled off the couch and Steve automatically put his hands on her hips, tugged her back. She ended up in his lap, squirmed around so that she was sitting side ways, could turn her head to look at him from inches away.  
  
She was soft and warm and  _in his lap_  and Steve thought very, very seriously about how humiliating if would be for both of them if he got an erection but was not entirely successful at not getting hard.  
  
She smelled really, really nice, and Steve really really liked it when she put her arms around his neck, rested her head against his shoulder, and asked, "am I making a total idiot of myself?"  
  
"Nope," Steve managed with a dry mouth.  
  
Darcy smiled, like a cat who'd gotten into the cream. "Then Selvig owes me ten bucks."


End file.
